Five disciplines for regulated and austere operations
Each engagement is scoped to your situation. We start with a candid assessment, define the work, and deliver systems and strategies your team can actually run.
Operations & Logistics Consulting
This is the practice the firm is built on. Twenty years of Army logistics — enlisted TMDE calibrator to commissioned logistics officer serving with U.S. Army Special Forces, Demonstrated Master Logistician, K9 Special Operations Logistician — followed by operating the supply-chain and process backbone of a Yukon-Delta village corporation and an ISO/IEC 17025 calibration lab. We bring repeatable process to operations where resupply is slow, conditions are harsh, and margin for error is thin.
Outcome: Operations that keep running when the next delivery is weeks — not hours — away.
What an engagement covers
- Process mapping and standard-work development
- Supply-chain and inventory policy for remote and bulk-fuel sites
- Fuel, materials, and equipment logistics planning
- Continuity-of-operations and contingency design
- Performance-based logistics and federal service-contract oversight (COR/QAE)
- Operational reporting and executive / board-level KPIs
- Applied AI for operational reporting, dispatch, and exception handling, with approval before anything goes live
Operational Forensics & Shareholder Protection
Fraud and operational capture rarely show up in the books first. They show up in the operational seams — the process gaps that stay open on purpose, the vendor contracts written to be unenforceable, the reporting channels that funnel through the wrong people. Cingilek engages at that layer. We are not a forensic accountant, and we are not a private investigator. We are a domain-level operator who has done the work at three tiers — U.S. Army Special Forces, ANC subsidiary CEO, and ISO/IEC 17025 accredited lab operator — and can see the whole system as a machine.
Outcome: A complete operational picture even when compliance, legal, and audit are part of the problem — delivered directly to the board.
What an engagement covers
- Diagnostic Domain Review — board-authorized deep-dive across operations, IT, legal, and finance ($25,000–$45,000, 3–6 weeks)
- Embedded Engagement — confidential interim-role engagement with the board and General Counsel as the only informed parties ($28,500/month, 90-day minimum)
- Standing Shareholder Protection Retainer — continuous review with quarterly domain deep-dives and an independent reporting channel routed away from suspected gatekeepers ($12,000–$18,000/month, 12-month term)
- Native Corporation experience — direct executive service as President & CEO of an Alaska Native village corporation, adopted by the Yup'ik people of Emmonak; fluent in ANCSA, ANC governance, 8(a)/ANC set-aside vehicles, and Buy Indian Act
- Records-integrity review that reconstructs what changed in a system of record, when it changed, and under whose account
- Preserved chain of custody on all evidence; 7-year retention; findings delivered through an encrypted channel designated by Counsel of Record
- Client is the Board of Directors or designated sub-committee — not executive management — with written scope authorized by Counsel of Record
Federal Contracting Strategy
Navigate set-aside programs and structure teaming arrangements that pair the right socioeconomic vehicle with the right past performance. Advised from inside both sides of the table — as a service-disabled veteran owner and as the chief executive of an Alaska Native village corporation.
Outcome: A clear, compliant path to the contract vehicles your firm is actually eligible to win.
What an engagement covers
- SAM.gov registration and representations review
- Set-aside eligibility and small-business strategy
- Teaming arrangements and joint-venture structuring
- 8(a) / ANC and Buy Indian Act pathway guidance
- Capability statement and past-performance positioning
- AI-assisted solicitation parsing, compliance matrices, and proposal drafting, with SI terminology mapped for solicitations written under Executive Order 14434 and every draft reviewed before release
Quality Management Systems
Stand up or mature a quality-management system that survives audits and actually fits how your team works — not a binder of policies nobody reads. Built first-hand inside an ISO/IEC 17025:2017-accredited calibration laboratory.
Outcome: A lean, defensible QMS your team can run — and that holds up under accreditation or customer audit.
What an engagement covers
- Gap assessments against ISO 9001, AS9100, and ISO/IEC 17025
- Procedure and work-instruction architecture
- Internal audit programs and management-review cadence
- Corrective-action / CAPA system design
- Accreditation and certification readiness support
- AI assistance for nonconformance triage, CAPA drafting, and document control, with every change approved and traceable
Metrology & Calibration Program Design
Design measurement and calibration programs with documented traceability, defensible uncertainty budgets, and intervals that match real-world risk. Discipline learned on Army TMDE benches and re-applied at lab scale.
Outcome: Measurements you can defend — to an auditor, a customer, or a contracting officer.
What an engagement covers
- Calibration interval analysis and recall systems
- Measurement uncertainty budgets and traceability chains
- Lab scope development and accreditation strategy
- Vendor / external-lab qualification frameworks
- Equipment lifecycle and asset-management policy
- AI connected to calibration databases and software, with records mapped to a governed reference and 17025-aligned evidence trails
Built into the work, not bolted on
Where it adds genuine value, applied AI runs alongside every Cingilek engagement. It works inside the systems your team already uses, under the approvals your business already requires, and it is run first on our own companies.
Inside your systems
Agents read and act in Microsoft 365, SharePoint, QuickBooks, calibration databases, and websites. No copying answers out of a chat window into the real system by hand.
Approved before it goes live
Changes land on a preview first. Nothing publishes, sends, pays, or deletes without a named approver, and every action leaves a record an auditor can follow.
Separated and owned
Each entity and department keeps its own access and evidence. Hosted where your data rules require, on hardware you own when sensitivity demands it, with open model choice.
Scoped to the work — not billed by the binder
Most Cingilek engagements are fixed fee or monthly retainer. Hourly is available, but it is rarely the right shape for the kind of work clients hire us for.
Diagnostic
A focused assessment against the standard you operate under — operations, federal-contracting posture, QMS, or metrology. You leave with a written gap-and-priority report and a clear path forward.
When it fits · Right when you need an independent read before committing capital or scope.
Program Design
Build or rebuild the system itself — remote-operations playbook, federal-contracting strategy, QMS architecture, or calibration program. Delivered with procedures, training, and the audit story that goes with it.
When it fits · Right when the system has to hold up under accreditation, contract, or board review.
Fractional / Retainer
Standing advisory capacity. Predictable monthly hours, single point of contact, and a working relationship that compounds. Common as fractional ops advisor, federal-contracting counsel-of-record, or QA director.
When it fits · Right when the work is ongoing and you do not need (or cannot justify) a full-time hire.
Federal Prime / Sub
Direct support to a federal customer or teaming partner — as a service-disabled veteran-owned small business or through 8(a) / ANC teaming arrangements. GSA-equivalent rates; FAR-compliant deliverables.
When it fits · Right when the work needs a federal contract vehicle and veteran-owned or ANC participation.
Most engagements are scoped as fixed fee or monthly retainer. Hourly work is available at a published advisory rate; rush, expert-witness, and board-facing engagements carry a higher rate. Federal work is delivered at GSA-equivalent rates. Applied-AI engagements are scoped the same way — pricing inside the rate card.
Download the rate card
Six pages: published advisory rates, engagement sizes by service line, federal pricing, applied-AI engagement options, the new Operational Forensics practice with the anonymized case pattern, terms, and federal identifiers. Send it to procurement; bring it to your board.
Not sure which fits?
Most engagements touch more than one discipline. Tell us the problem and we'll map the work.